Training … maze?
I screwed my eyes shut, resting my throbbing head on Mav's shoulder, and tried to remember how to breathe. I needed my healing to take care of the burns so I couldthinkagain, needed the weight off my chest so I could drag air into my lungs, needed to be able to walk so I could fight, so I could save Sang—
The doors to the lift opened, and I sucked in a breath. Even with my eyes blurry, I could tell the floor lived up to its name.
"Whydo you have a maze?" I groaned, staring at the enormous labyrinth formed of black hedges, the leaves veined in red.
"Sang likes to chase his victims," Mav replied, and we both flinched at a tortured scream, so loud it rattled my eardrums. No wonder we'd been able to hear him in the sub-sub basement. Up close like this, it grabbed my heart in a barbed fist and squeezed so tight that blood oozed.
"Where's Void?" I breathed when Mav strode out of the lift, my throat burned so every word was a hoarse whisper. His tentacles tightened around me, pressing my wrecked body closer, and for a second I felt him hesitate, as if he was going to turn around and carry me back to the basement.
But Sang screamed again, and his next step was more decisive.
"There," he replied, pointing with a tentacle. Blood dripped down its length, the tip cut off, and my heart ached fiercely. I hurt for all my mates, for all their suffering. "He's trampling the maze, looking for Sang."
"We need to look that way," I said, pointing my finger even if I couldn't lift my arm. My strength was completely sapped; it took all my energy to keep my eyes open. "I don't know why. Just … that way."
I felt it in the air, a tremor that wasalmostunnoticeable. But it was a vibration one I'd grown familiar with after thirty years of living in the hutch. There was a resonance between weapons, easy to overlook but always there. I guided Mav towards it, struggling to keep my eyes full of the dark maze instead of the black unconsciousness creeping up on me.
Sang. Find Sang, andthenpass out.
"Oh god," Mav hissed, his tentacles slackening around me as he stumbled into the side of a tall hedge.
It only took me a moment to see what made him react like that.
Several metres ahead of us, Sang was suspended in the air, dangling upside down so his messy hair hung off his head and his stomach … his stomach had been sliced from side to side, his entrails spilling down his chest.
Mav shuddered hard enough that his grip faltered on me, and he settled me in the grass at his feet as I stared and choked on air.
Sang, my Sang…
Anger joined the scourge of weakness in my body, but not enough for me to push to my feet or even crawl to my mate. My mate, who'd shown me obsessive sweetness when I'd never known it before. My mate, who claimed me before anyone else, who held me when I burst into sobs even though he was supposed to have been torturing me.
"Get thefuckaway from him!" Mav roared, his voice croaky.
His words snapped my stare away from where Sang hung, and my heart stopped for a second when I sawwhowas torturing him. I knew her on sight; everyone in the hutch knew to avoid her. Her name was Anna, or Alice, or Emma, I couldn't remember. She'd turned out crueller than the rest of us, some essential humanity lacking. Given half the chance, she inflicted her violence on the rest of us, and laughed while she did so.
Her hair was pure white, several shades lighter than her tanned skin, and she looked exactly like a doll I had growing up; big eyes, pouty lips, freckles on her cheeks.
Her eyes were as dull and empty as the doll's were, too. But she wore a terrifying grin when she twisted and contorted her fingers into tense, spiky shapes, each movement dragging a scream from Sang. She was playing with him, putting him through excruciating pain just for fun.
And I could donothingto stop it, so fucking weak I couldn't push up from the ground. I could do nothing but slump into the base of the hedge, dark leaves scratching my face.
But I could shout. Even with my throat burned, my voice hoarse, I could shout. So when Mav launched himself at the weapon with tentacles leaking blood and pus, I dragged air into my lungs, threw my head back, and screamed, "Void!"
I shouted over and over.Void! Void! Void!
When the ground shook, I began to weep, uncontrollable tears choking my throat and sending tears in a stinging trail down my face. Unconsciousness loitered close, waiting to rip me away from the maze, but I clenched my teeth and held on until every step Void took made my entire body jump.
Mav flew forward and grabbed Sang as the weapon let him crash to the grass, his intestines leaving smears on Mav's blue skin when he caught him clumsily.
"I've killed scarier monsters than you," Anna-Emma-Alice boasted, sneering up at Void in giant form as he stomped across the grass hard enough to leave cracks in the turf. "What makes you think you can—"
Void reached down a massive grey hand, veins standing out on the back of it as he grabbed Anna and swung her up to his face, shoved her into his open mouth and … crunched through her bones.
A sheen of black crept over my vision, but I held on to watch Void grind the weapon with his teeth before his throat bobbed in a swallow.
Right, then…